


When the Rain Falls Down in Allendale

by KatsukiSin



Series: Blank Pages, Waiting to Be Filled [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Humor, Book Club, Castiel & Sam Winchester Bonding, Conversations, Gen, How Do I Tag, Not Beta Read, Sam Winchester loves dogs, There Will Come Soft Rains, or proofread, ray bradbury - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29365227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatsukiSin/pseuds/KatsukiSin
Summary: Sam and Cas read Ray Bradbury's shortstory: There Will Come Soft Rains. Their discussion of it leads them to talk about dogs, Heaven, and how important the Bunker is to them.
Relationships: Castiel & Sam Winchester
Series: Blank Pages, Waiting to Be Filled [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2005186
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	When the Rain Falls Down in Allendale

**Author's Note:**

> There Will Come Soft Rains is only five pages long, and it's pretty easy to find a pdf of it online, so I would recommend rereading (or reading it for the first time, I guess) it before trying to tackle this one-shot.
> 
> Also, before someone calls me out of it, I know Bradbury uses 'it' pronouns for the dog, but I called the dog a he in this because 'it' is kinda mean.

_ “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…” _

Sam let out a sad sound, somewhere between a sigh and a disbelieving huff, as he finished the last line of the short story and let himself fall limp against the back of his stool. 

Cas cleared his throat from where he sat across the table. “That… was a horribly depressing story.” 

“You can say that again.” Sam ran a hand down his face, shaking his head. “An entire city being bombed was bad enough, but the dog? Killing the dog was just too much.”

The angel winced in sympathy at the miserable look on Sam’s face. “At least the dog was able to die in his home. His final resting place was one he was familiar with and loved.” 

“That’s not enough!” Sam groaned. “He died alone and in pain! He didn’t deserve that.”

“I know you care deeply about dogs, Sam,” Cas said gently. “But there’s nothing you can do about it. The dog is fictional, anyway.”

“That doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”

Cas started to reply, but Sam cut him off. 

“ _ What if,”  _ Sam started. “What if there was a way to take the dog out of the story? You could heal him, we could give the guy a name, he could go on runs with me in the mornings, I could teach him to play fetch…”

Cas’s brow pinched as though he were actually considering it. “I don’t think I have the ability to cure radiation sickness anymore. Perhaps if I were to give the dog small bursts of healing over a long period of time, I might be able to slowly heal him... But even so, I don’t know if a spell exists that would bring the dog into reality. I’m sorry, Sam. If you want a dog so badly, you might be able to go to a local shelter instead?”

Sam snorted. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think Dean would be alright with getting a dog.” 

“The Bunker is a rather large place, you know,” Cas said, with a raised eyebrow and a suggestive smirk beginning to grace his features. “I imagine it would be remarkably easy to keep something, even a living something, a secret here.”

Sam’s eyes widened, and he could have  _ sworn  _ his heart skipped a beat in his chest. “You’re not saying that we…?”

“I’m not saying anything at all,” Cas said in a severe tone. The angel wiped the smirk off his face, but there was still a dangerously mischievous glint in his eyes. “Although I will point out that there are a lot of dogs in shelters that are in need of good homes and, as a hunter, you excel at keeping secrets and lying for the greater good.”

Now, Sam wasn’t dense; he was perfectly aware that trying to keep a dog hidden in the Bunker wasn’t likely to work out, especially not since he, Dean, and Cas would leave for days to weeks at a time to work cases. Still, the idea of having a dog,  _ and  _ besting Dean by keeping the dog a secret when knowing full well his older brother wouldn’t approve, and  _ Cas--  _ the ever-practical and serious Angel of the Lord Castiel-- being the one to suggest doing it… Sam couldn’t keep the goofy smile off his face if he tried. 

“You know what, Cas? Why stop at a dog? Haven’t you always wanted a guinea pig?”

The angel’s lips twitched upward. “I’m fond of the creatures, yes.”

Sam gasped softly as an idea struck him. “We could give them matching names! Like Bonnie and Clyde.”

Cas was struggling to keep a straight face now. “Or Holmes and Watson?”

“Arthur and Merlin.”

“Romeo and Juliet.”

“Gilgamesh and Enkidu?” Sam snickered as Cas' eyes fluttered shut in annoyance at the proposed names.

“Dogs weren’t the only animals mentioned in the story,” Cas said, eager to change the subject. Ever since Sam had found out Castiel had accidentally changed historical records regarding the ancient Sumerian King Gilgamesh thousands of years ago, the angel had found himself being teased relentlessly about it. “Did you notice the bees and the okapi on page three?” 

“I did.” Sam glanced over at a drawing of an okapi hanging from the wall. Sam had drawn the image shortly after he and Cas had read Kingsolver’s  _ The Poisonwood Bible  _ together; the animal had held a special place in both their hearts since then, and of course, it was no secret that Castiel adored bees. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost say we were destined to read this short story.” 

“Not that destiny applies to us very much anymore,” Cas pointed out. “Although…” 

Sam frowned when Cas trailed off. “What is it?”

But Cas shook his head. “Nevermind. I’m sure it’ll sound silly if I try to say it out loud.”

“No, come on.” Sam leaned forward, giving the angel an encouraging smile. “I want to know.”

“Well,” Castiel started. “The house in the story, it reminds me of the Bunker.” 

“Oh.” Sam wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but that wasn’t it. “Really?”

Cas nodded, a thoughtful look on his face. “Lebanon hasn’t been bombed, of course. But a city is just a large organization of people and systems, and when you think about it, this Men of Letters bunker is like one house in a large Men of Letters city. The Bunker and the house both survived horrible tragedies-- massacres that annihilated their cities. The house in Bradbury’s story was waiting, full of the potential to help and house others, but forgotten and unused. The Bunker was like that, too, before you and Dean. If you and Dean hadn’t come along… I wonder if this place would have eventually been lost to time, too.” 

“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Sam admitted. Maybe the house in  _ There Will Come Soft Rains  _ and the Bunker really were similar. 

Truth be told, Sam had wondered what would have happened to the Bunker if he and Dean had never stumbled across that Men of Letters key once or twice. He had pictured dark rooms gathering an unseemly amount of dust in utter silence. A slice of 1950s Kansas preserved, but slowly festering and decaying. Still, the Bunker was a fortress, and Sam had never considered that maybe some catastrophic event, or even just time itself, might have led to the complete destruction of the place. 

“We have so much here… bathrobes, books, bedrooms, actual  _ kitchens  _ to cook homemade meals in,” Sam mused. “Art supplies and drawings, board games, so many memories… it’s hard to imagine all of those things just… not being a part of our lives. If we hadn’t found our way here, maintained the Bunker and gotten the opportunity to make it a home, to make it  _ our  _ home…”

“Your chances of ever finding the Bunker were slim, especially since so few people knew the Men of Letters existed, but you did it anyway.” Cas gazed up at Sam with a prideful look. “That’s what Winchesters do, though: beat impossible odds again and again.”

“Yeah,” Sam said slowly. He didn’t like how Cas was saying ‘you’ Winchesters like he wasn’t one himself. “The three of us have gotten into the habit of doing that.” 

Cas sat up straighter at the subtle reassurance. “I’d say it’s a family trait, although I’m still trying to work out whether or not it’s a good thing.”

“Let me know when you come to a conclusion,” Sam joked. 

“ _ If  _ I come to a conclusion.”

“You know,” Sam started. “It’s kind of funny that the story reminded you of the Bunker. It actually made me think of Heaven.”

Castiel paused. “Heaven?”

“It’s a house filled with voices that try to please people who aren’t there anymore,” Sam said with a shrug, trying to pretend that the idea didn’t unnerve him as much as it did.

Cas was quiet for a few moments. “You’re saying that the robotic voices are like the angels, and the absent family is God?” Cas checked, furrowing his brow as he turned the idea over in his head.

“The house was literally designed for the sole purpose of following someone else’s orders, and when those orders stopped coming, things just fell apart. Isn’t that what happened Upstairs?” Sam asked carefully. 

Castiel’s face pinched slightly. “Something like that. But there is one flaw in your theory. While a lot of individual angels may have been trying to serve God, Heaven itself and the system it operates under hasn’t cared about God’s will in a long time.”

“But that means that Heaven did care once?” Sam pressed.

“I suppose, at one point, it must have,” Cas said haltingly. 

“So what changed?”

Cas rolled his shoulders. He was fidgeting, obviously uncomfortable, but he continued anyway. “This short story is five pages long, and the house is arguably the main character of the story. The narrator refers to the house frequently, but throughout the entire five pages, not once does the narrator call the house a home. Do you know why that is?”

“Uh,” Sam stuttered. “No?”

“Turn to the second page,” Cas ordered. “And read the first paragraph.”

Sam obeyed, although he wasn’t sure what this had to do with what he had asked of the angel.

_ The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers. Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down. _

“I don’t get it,” Sam admitted, throwing Cas a helpless glance. 

“The family was incinerated, Sam, and everything that made the house a  _ home  _ died with them,” Cas said. “I’m not sure when, but that’s what changed in Heaven. Assuming it was there in the first place-- I honestly can’t tell anymore.”

Sam thought of the way angels called each other brother and sister. At best, Sam had only ever heard them say that as a meaningless title. At worst, angels had thrown the word 'brother' at Cas as some sick guilt trip in an attempt to twist him into an obedient soldier. Cas was right. Whatever Heaven was, it certainly wasn't a family.

"I'm sorry," Sam said.

"You can't save people who don't want to be saved, and Heaven is set in its ways. I still hope for things to change for the better, but until then," Cas shrugged. "I have to make peace with the fact that Heaven doesn't want to be saved yet."

The angel gave Sam an odd look when he huffed out a laugh. 

“Sorry,” Sam said again. “It’s just… people don’t usually think of Heaven as a place that needs saving.”

Cas tilted his head. “No, you’re right. Earth is the place that has an apocalypse every year.”

“That’s not our fault!” Sam protested. Cas shot him a dubious look, and even Sam had to wince at his poor choice of words. “That’s not humanity  _ in general’s  _ fault,” he corrected. “Dean and I are just…really bad exceptions. But I should point out that supernatural creatures are the ones making it easy for us to accidentally bring about the end of the world, so is it really our fault?”

“Technically you’re right, I suppose.”

“See? Besides, we save the world enough that it has to even out.” 

* * *

“Sara Teasdale was wrong, you know,” Cas said as the two were concluding the book club meeting. 

Sam glanced at the angel as he put the short story collection books back on the shelves for next time. “About what?”

“‘ _Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly,”_ Cas recited, and Sam recognized it as part of the poem contained within Bradbury’s story. “I would care if mankind perished. _I_ would know if you were gone.” 

The hunter smiled gently. “I know, Cas.” 

Finished with the books, Sam made his way back to the angel’s side. 

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't know how to end this. I'll probably re-write this or something at a later date, but for now, I just wanna get it out there.
> 
> Also, I'm tired. 
> 
> I said that I would try to write a chapter of Sam and Dean finding out about Cas' new additions to his bedroom in the previous installment, but right now, that's still in the early planning phase. It's definitely gonna be a while before I get that posted.


End file.
